


Deterioration

by yesthankyouforyourinput



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Be warned for triggers, Brief Descriptions of Sex, Confusion, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Drugs, M/M, No Graphic Details of the Suicide, Slight Sexual Manipulation, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2254662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesthankyouforyourinput/pseuds/yesthankyouforyourinput
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock had been building up his mind palace since he was a child, storing information and memories to keep for his entire life. He crashes once and gets his palace back, but then he encounters John Watson and runs into some problems. He crashes again, this time for good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deterioration

When he was a child, his mind palace was somewhere he'd retreat to when Mycroft was mean to him or he was angry at whoever he could find. It had started as a small house, just a cottage. Then it built up and expanded until it was the palace he knew today. He had extra rooms and corridors for different pieces of information he had acquired over the years. Through highschool and college, his mind palace was a pleasant distraction, somewhere he could go when he was sick of being called a freak or being targeted for no apparent reason. Just because he was smarter than the others. In his mind palace, he always kept the worst people locked up, right down in the basement so he couldn't hear their harsh words when he was browsing the hallways, searching for whatever he may need. 

It wasn't until his university days that his mind palace began to deteriorate. The drugs helped when the people that taunted him managed to break through the bars and get out, set free inside his mind palace. The drugs helped him to control the people, block out his mind palace and send him spinning into a blissful state of ignorance. He only realised the true extent of the damage when he'd revisit during his crashes. He'd feel ill, so take a few hours off from the real world and escape, wandering the halls and seeing his rooms of information. One time, during a particularly bad crash, he found himself wandering down an older corridor, one that contained information from his first case. A robbery where the suspect had taken all the victim's possessions but chose to leave the most valuable, watches and wallets still tucked into drawers. The robber had taken pointless objects. Pyjamas, shoes, the odd sock. It had baffled police. Sherlock, after finding evidence under the police's radar, caught his first criminal at age twelve. Sometimes, if he opened doors on random searches, he would come across some of these possessions that the robber took. He saw the victim's shoes by the door and it gave him a fond feeling. But the crash caused intense pains in his head, and it hurt Sherlock to see the memories of his first case crumble to dust. His mind palace was breaking and Sherlock didn't know how to feel. If it was all gone, the bad memories would go, but then he would lose all his information and knowledge and he wouldn't know how to get it all back. He'd not have anything special then. He wouldn't be different, but maybe that was good. He'd been branded a freak his entire life, and maybe it was time for a change? 

For eight months, Sherlock watched his palace crumble. The remnants of his mind palace were full of memories of Victor Trevor, his past boyfriend from college. Victor said he loved Sherlock, so it was only fair that Victor got what he wanted. Sherlock would have sex with him, allow Victor to use him, and then be rewarded with whatever drugs he saw fit. Heroin, cocaine or cannabis. Pure cocaine was his personal preference, however. He knew sex was meant to be pleasurable but he never really reached that point. It was around that point when he decided sex wouldn't really be his thing. Victor liked to put his point out that he was good at sex, very good, infact. So maybe there was a problem with Sherlock if he wasn't enjoying it. He didn't really know much on the subject. Despite his distaste for the actions, Victor continued to pursue him sexually. Sherlock didn't mind, if he told Victor that he didn't enjoy it, he wouldn't get what he needed out of it. The drugs helped to numb him, making him immune to people's insults. Victor would always stick up for him when he was called a freak, and Sherlock supposed that he loved him. He was supposed to love someone who was nice to him.

When Victor left him, Sherlock wasn't entirely devastated. He just felt betrayed, watching his dealer, of sorts, in bed with someone else. He looked happy, so Sherlock didn't mind, but still. It hurt. After that, he remained sober for a long time. He built his palace up from the wreckage and continued his career as a consulting detective, solving crimes when the police were out of their depth. He still received the names, the painful insults. Freak was the worst, seared into his memory for as long as he would live. 

Again, Sherlock was sat in his chair, drifting off to his mind palace. As of recently, his mind palace had built up rapidly. He had never dedicated so much of his mind palace to one person before, but as always, John Watson was his exception. He had an entire floor, rooms dedicated to his tea preferences and ridiculous jumpers. Sometimes, if he spent long enough in his mind palace, he would manage to convince himself that John was his. That John wasn't dedicated to his short relationships with numerous women, but of course, Mycroft would come to him speaking his idiotic words of wisdom. Telling him to not get involved. Tough. Sherlock was involved. He wanted to be involved. He wanted to be the one to make John tea and give him blankets and soft kisses when he was ill or tired. He wanted to be the one that John cared for. But he ended up caring for John, and he never minded too much. John was his everything, and he would fight for him. But then John was under threat by a mad Irish psychopath and Sherlock felt himself spiralling into that state of worry and craving for the substances again. He needed to feel numb. He could lose John and break completely. When he was confronted by Moriarty on the roof of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, he felt his entire world crash down around him. As soon as Moriarty shot himself, he was transported to the lowest, highest security part of his mind palace where he would never get to Sherlock again. He could never threaten him in his deadly sing-song voice. But now it wasn't his own life he was afraid of, but now John's. John's life meant more to him than anything, and he would do everything in his power to ensure it was kept that way. That was his main thought while he fell to the floor. 

He felt his crash worsen when John's hand touched his, desperately checking for a pulse. He ached to squeeze John's hand, just assure him that he was alive so he wouldn't feel any pain. It was agony to leave, but he had to do what was necessary to keep John's heart beating.

He felt himself truly break one night in a cheap hotel in Paris. His mind palace was gradually reducing to dust, each memory crashing down. The noise was deafening, the painful crescendo of his mind caving in on itself. All that remained was John. John's floor. It was all that really mattered, his only purpose now in the otherwise irrelevant world. He ran towards the wreckage, past the rooms dedicated only to tea and jumpers, to find John Watson, kneeling on the floor. He was surrounded by broken wood, bricks and dust, yet still remained perfectly preserved as Sherlock had seen him last.   
“John...” Sherlock whispered, approaching him carefully. He didn't need to. John wasn't an unpredictable animal, he was John. Lovely, kind, caring John. John was now the only thing that stood out in the endless abyss of black surrounding them. “John, it's me.” He took John's shoulders before kneeling down in front of him. His expression was blank and vacant, as if he was looking through Sherlock as opposed to directly at him. He shook John's shoulders gently, yet John didn't move. It seemed like Sherlock was wasting his efforts, his hands just travelling through John's shoulders if he applied too much pressure. He was like a useless phantom, desperate to make John notice him. “John, Please!” he shouted, hoping for some kind of effect. But the response was what sent the rest of Sherlock's palace to the ground.

“You broke me.” John whispered, locking eyes with Sherlock before coughing harshly. Sherlock rushed forward to hold John as he coughed, but didn't make contact. “I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, John...” John didn't seem to hear Sherlock's pleas, instead opting to cough some more. He brought his hand up to his mouth and coughed some more. After his fit had somewhat subsided, John pulled his hand back. To Sherlock's surprise, and genuine fear, he noticed blood on John's hand. The blood stood out against the pale of John's skin. Everything contrasted against the infinite darkness that surrounded them. John's hand continued to pale, eventually becoming translucent, then non-existent. John was gone, and a few spots of blood fell to the floor.

Sometime during his devastation, Sherlock snapped back into reality at the words from the television.   
“John Hamish Watson, formerly of the Northumberland Fusileers and colleague of the late detective Sherlock Holmes was found dead in his apartment due to an overdose on the fourth of October 2013”

That was when everything broke.


End file.
